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The University of Toledo Law Review, Winter 2006 USING THE SECURITIES ANDEXCHANGE COMMISSION'S STATUTORY WEAPONRY TO COMBATSPAM John Reed Stark• and Carolyn E. Kurr•• My name is Spam. Spam/Am. I have some stuffI'd like to sell. Take a look! It's really swell! I do not want your worthless spam. I do not want it, Spam I Am. Spam/Am: How about some fast cash? Fifty Thousand in ajlash!!! How stupid do you think I am? I won 't join your shady scam. 1 INCE the earliest campaigns in the mid-1990s, "spam" (unsolicited bulk e­ Smail) has placed a continuous and almost immeasurable burden on the entire online community. In fact,the term originates froma skit in Monty Python's Flying Circus involving a restaurant that serves Spam, a brand of canned meat, with all of its food. To the other diners' irritation, each time the waitress recites the spam­ filledmenu, a groupof Vikings sitting in a cornerloudly sing "Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, lovely spam! Wonderful spam!"until told to shut • John Reed Stark is Chief of the Officeoflnternet Enforcement, Counselor to the Director of the Division ofEnforcement,and is in charge of the Division of Enforcement'sInternet Program at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches a course on the securities laws and the Internet. Mr. Stark serves as Co-Chair of the American BarAssociation Subcommittee on Securities Law and the Internetand has written a range of articles published in various law journalsconcerning securities regulation and the Internet. •• CarolynE. Kurris a senior counsel in the SEC's Officeoflnternet Enforcement. The SEC disclaims anyresponsibility forany private publication or speech by any of the members ofits staff. The views expressed herein arethose of the authors and do not necessarily reflectthe views of the SEC or the authors' colleagues on its staff. 1. Spam I Am, http://strangecosmos.com/content/item/l02649.html (last visited Aug. 20, 2005) (mimicking the famous children's novel Green Eggs and Ham by Theodore Giesel (1997)). 271 UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 37 up.2 Thus, from its inception spare represented something that keeps repeating and repeating itself to an audience's great annoyance. Today, spam clogs the inboxes of almost every Internet user. Anyone who maintains an e-mail account likely has experienced the mind-numbing frustration of sifting through dozens of unwanted spam messages advertising everything from sexual aids and pornography to investment advice and moneymaking schemes. The spain plague has increased dramatically in recent years, from 8% of all e-mail traffic in 2001, to between 75% and 80% of all e-mail traffic in 2004.' Spam is no joke: it imposes substantial costs on both individuals and businesses, and places tremendous burdens on overloaded servers and Internet service providers (ISPs) across the globe. Increasingly, it is not only considered a menace, but also an economic crime. The costs of handling spam add up to real money. One research company estimates that spain costs American businesses $10 billion per year, while another estimates the cost at a conservative $9 billion, including $4 billion in productivity losses.4 The average employee receives an estimated 7500 pieces of unsolicited commercial e-mail per year,5 resulting in a 3.1% loss in productivity.6 Spam has a similarly deleterious effect internationally, costing an estimated $20.5 billion to businesses worldwide. 7 Because spain is relatively inexpensive and easy to create, fraudsters, hucksters, and other con artists often employ spain as a marketing tool to find investors for bogus investment schemes or to spread false information about a company. Unlike old-fashioned boiler room scams which required costly infrastructures with an actual office and a network of salespersons, spammers can now send tens of millions of fraudulent promotional and sales materials to potential investors at minimal cost with just a click of the mouse. In April 2003, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published the results of its study of 1000 spam messages, and reported that 66% of the messages were fraudulent or deceptive in some way.' Furthermore, the FTC found that a full 20% of spam messages promote some sort of "get-rich-quick" scheme.9 Though somewhat limited in its jurisdiction, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken an extraordinarily active role in protecting investors against spanmers' fraudulent investment-related schemes and thus far has achieved a high degree of success in stopping spammers in their tracks. In fact, when spam 2. Gavin Herlihy, Spam, spam, spam, spam, e-mail, span, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, SCOTSMAN, Sept. 13, 1999, at 22. 3. David McGuire, A Year After Legislation,Spam Still Widespread; Technology Seen as Best Development, WASH. POST, Jan. 4, 2005, at E5; Elizabeth A. Alongi, Has the U.S. Canned Spam? 46 ARIz. L. REV. 263, 263 (2004). 4. Stephanie Schorow, FrustratedE-mail Users Struggle to Put Nuisance Back in the Can, BOSTON HERALD, July 16, 2003, at 42; Steven Brostoff, Will Canning Spam Hurt Commerce?, NAT'L UNDERWRITER (Life & Health/Financial Services ed.), Mar. 3, 2003, at 5. 5. Spain Hits an All-Time High, AUSTRALIAN (New South Wales), June 15, 2004, at C3. 6. Josee Valcourt, The Spam Factor,CLARION-LEDGER (Jackson, Miss.), July 22, 2004, at IC. 7. Erin Elizabeth Marks, Spammer Clogs In-boxes Everywhere: Will the CAN-Spam Act of 2003 Halt the Invasion?, 54 CASE W. RES. L. REv. 943, 944 (2004). 8. Joseph Siegel, 2/3 ofSpam a Real Sham, FTC Reports, DAILY NEWS (New York), Apr. 3, 2003, at 8. 9. Marks, supra note 7, at 945. Winter 2006] COMBATING SPAM began to flourish in the late 1990s, the SEC employed its basic arsenal of statutory provisions, including powerful anti-fraud provisions, to combat a variety of fraudulent spam campaigns without the need for additional rules or regulations.' The Commission also successfully utilized other pre-existing provisions in new and innovative ways to reign in spammers' questionable practices, without encountering many of the constitutional challenges facing much ofthe legislation that specifically targets spam. For instance, the Enforcement Division brought numerous actions against online spammers for violating Section 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933," a long-standing provision prohibiting publication of paid-for touts without full disclosure of the compensation arrangement. The Internet brought this provision into the limelight because spanmers frequently presented paid-for stock touts as the result of independent analysis, when, in fact, the opinions were bought and 12 paid for. In recent years, numerous states have enacted new anti-spain statutes, and the federal government enacted a law in December 2003 that limits spammers' permissible activities. 3 This article provides a brief overview of recent federal and state initiatives, as well as the challenges they face. In addition, this article chronicles the Commission's enforcement efforts against fraudulent spam, namely, offering frauds, momentum plays, pump and dump schemes, and discusses other innovative ways in which the Commission applied technical federal securities laws within the context of spam. Finally, this article evaluates the Commission's ongoing role in the effort to fight fraudulent spam. I. PRIVATE PARTIES, THE STATES, AND FEDERAL REGULATORS TACKLE SPAM I deleted the spain mail. Shut down for the day. (Outlook was startingto crash anyway). Then turned off the lights and stepped out the door. As for spain mail andjunk mail, I knew there 'd be more. 14 A. ISPs Lead the Fight in PrivateActions againstSpammer Consumers, businesses and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) constantly struggle with the burdens of spam. Businesses and individual e-mail users aggravated by a constant influx of unwanted e-mails shop for the ISPs with the best anti-spam 10. See Press Release, SEC, SEC Conducts First Ever Nationwide Internet Securities Fraud Sweep, Charges 44 Stock Promoters in 23 Enforcement Actions (Oct. 28, 1998), available at http://www.sec.gov/news/press/pressarchive/1998/98-117.txt [hereinafter SEC Press Release No. 98- 117]. 11. 15 U.S.C. § 77q(b). 12. See SEC Press Release No. 98-117, supra note 10; Press Release, SEC, SEC Continues Internet Fraud Crackdown (Feb. 25, 1999), available at http://www.sec.gov/news/press/pressarchive/ 1999/99-24.txt [hereinafter SEC Press Release No. 99-24]. 13. Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act of 2003, 15 U.S.C. § 7701-7713 (Supp. 2005). 14. The Net Before Christmas, http://www.p45.net/cgi-bin/j okes/index.cgi?ref=browse&f-=view &id= 1008612814159134179232&block=-36 (last visited Sept. 12, 2005). UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 37 software, purchase their own software filters, and even create new e-mail accounts in hopes of escaping spammers' attention, if only for a little while. ISPs have little choice but to institute costly internal equipment, procedures, and programming to reduce the amount of spam reaching customers and to minimize spam's impact on the speed and utility of their systems. Thus, consumers, private companies, and ISPs alike have clamored for increased legislation against span on both the state and federal levels. ISPs, arguably facing the clearest costs of spam, have been the most successful private litigants against spammers. ISPs have brought suits in several states based on a common law "trespass to chattels" theory, arguing that by placing a substantial burden on their equipment and storage capacity, the spammers "trespassed" upon and damaged their personal property. ISPs have won verdicts in Virginia, Iowa, and Ohio based on the trespass to chattels theory. In America Online v. IMS, the Eastern District of Virginia found that America Online (AOL) established the defendant spammer's trespass to chattels in violation of Virginia's common law.
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